Exclusive Interview with Anne Garefino

The woman behind Book of Mormon and South Park talks with TMR.

When consulting the list of longest-running series in the history of television, these award-winning programs made the grade: ReadingRainbow, Lassie, The Daily Show, Masterpiece Theatre, Saturday Night
Live, NBC Nightly News, and South Park.

In 1997, two friends came up with
an idea they thought was a long shot. Fifteen years later the creators of South Park celebrate 2011 as “The Year
of the Fan.” Fans
of the long-running series will get to enjoy new merchandise, a traveling art
exhibit, a 15,000 square foot world of “South Park” located just outside this
year’s Comic-Con in San Diego, and a documentary on the behind-the-scenes
making of the show, due out later this fall.

With a decade-and-a-half of delivering viewers comedic gold on Comedy Central, Trey
Parker and Matt Stone, along with their executive producer Anne Garefino, also
have the hottest ticket on Broadway right now with a little show you might have
heard of, The Book of Mormon.

On
her first day off in years (seriously, years), the woman behind South Park allowed me the distinct honor
of asking her a bunch of questions about her career, those two guys she works
with daily, and basically what life is like when you produce a hit Broadway
musical and, well, f&^$ing South Park.

How
did you meet Trey Parker and Matt Stone?

In ’97 I was working for
another show for Comedy Central, and I was introduced to Matt at a Starbucks. I
met Trey a week later. I remember that day, it happened to be Good Friday. I
have not had one Friday off since then.

Have you always
had a passion for comedy?

No, not at all. In entertainment,
sometimes you don’t get a choice. I actually turned down South Park, which
shows how smart I am. I started it to help out, and was going to find a
replacement. I always had a passion for drama and thought I’d be doing serious
films. But I wanted to tell a story. We [at South Park] like to tell stories.

What’s a giant
misconception people have about South Park?

[Laughing] I think a huge misconception
is that we sit around all day and laugh and get high. The writers’ room is
hard. We do one episode in one week and we work with pieces of the script at a
time, it’s really hard. We don’t just sit around coming up with fart jokes.

Fifteen years on the air is a long time for any series. How do you guys stay on the
cutting edge?

I think our secret is we’ve never handed
it off to anyone else. Every episode from start to finish: Matt and Trey. Matt
writes, Trey directs. We’ve learned so much in 15 years. We’ve grown up; it’s
been like a graduate course in writing. We keep our hands in it, if you know
your character, you stay sharp.

Do you have a
favorite character?

If you had asked me five years ago, I
would have said Cartman. Today, I’d say my favorite is Kyle, I love his
morality.

Being
an executive producer of such a controversial show that makes jokes about almost
every race and gender, do you ever catch serious backlash from feminist or
women’s groups?

No, never have. Not once, come to think
of it. Actually, for a long time older women were a big part of our
demographic. I’d like to think that that is attributed to our audience compiled
vastly of educated women that enjoy smart comedy.

Speaking of controversy, does South
Park have an agenda? Or are you just delivering comedy and the controversy
naturally follows?

We don’t have an agenda, that’s not our
job. We don’t wish to influence people in a political way or any other way. We
want to make people laugh.

What
was the goal of doing the documentary on making South Park? Is it exclusively
for the fans, or to show people the actual labor and creativity that goes into
the show?

To be honest, I have no idea what the
goal is. Arthur Bradford wanted to do a documentary on our work and I was
shocked when Trey said yes. We trust Arthur and can’t wait to see what he does
with the footage. We’ve been around for so long, and the fans might like to see
the profusion of work that goes into it. They would like the idea of knowing
what we’re doing.

South Park is shown all over the world and translated into over 30 languages. Was
the success of the show forecast in any way imaginable?

We thought we’d be done by six episodes.
Even in the middle of it, we had no idea. We were kind of oblivious.

What do you think the future is
like for the show?

We have two-and-a-half years left on
our contract, that we know about [again, laughing]. We’re around for a while.

And The Book of Mormon? It’ll be around until

Until people stop buying tickets.

South Park airs on Wednesdays on Comedy
Central at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT and The Book of Mormon runs Tuesday - Sunday at the
Eugene O’Neill Theatre in New York City.

Mychelle Vasvary is a writer and serious gin advocate. She tutors English at Notre Dame College and dreams in a Sylvia Plath lens. She covers celebrity and entertainment trends in our astonishingly media-driven society. She currently resides in the Los Angeles area.